DOSE:		oral	LSD
		oral	Alcohol - Beer/Wine
		smoked	Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

At the time of my trip, I had recently partaken in a ceremonial gathering wherein I vaporized ~20mg of 5MeO-DMT. It was unlike anything that I had ever experienced before. The event was so profound that I no longer consider myself an atheist; and this is coming from a guy who went into the experience a staunch, almost militant, atheist. The experience has permanently altered the course of my life. It was nothing short of a mystical experience… but that’s for another trip report. This trip report is about my first experience with LSD. I mention the 5MeO-DMT only because I believe that the experience somehow blazed a trail through my inner landscape, into the deepest regions of my mind. Ever since that experience, these deep regions are much more accessible through meditation, and psychedelics. It’s like I’ve unlocked a shortcut to a place I never would have believed existed. The temple built not with the hands. I found that same temple with the help of LSD, only this time when I entered the temple, the place had gone all… weird .

The setting is a house in a suburb about 30 minutes north of Seattle. It was the birthday of a newish friend and coworker. The plan was to wait for her parents to leave, then take Acid and watch The Room. If you haven’t seen The Room yet—it’s practically an acid trip in its own right. It is the brainchild of Tommy Wiseau, who might just be the most peculiar man on Earth. The movie feels like it was written by an actual alien who though he was making a normal Earth movie. I was pretty excited.

Not long after taking the acid [Reported Dose: "200 micrograms"], we all settled into the movie experience. It was an absolutely blast. The onset of the LSD was very long and gentle. Halfway through the movie I noticed only that I was laughing a lot (not necessarily unusual when watching this movie), and that my phone had a great tracer effect when I moved it in front of my face. Everything looked softer and more vibrant, especially the colored speech bubbles that I typed into existence on my iPhone.

About 2 hours in, I start noticing that the world had gone somewhat more bizarre, and there was a buzz of energy in me; the character of which was rather difficult to pin down. I’d become uncertain about my depth perception, and I wondered if I still commanded enough control over my body to walk around. So I excused myself from the movie and made my way into the bathroom. To my delight, my body seemed to manage walking just fine. Standing over the toilet to pee was easily managed as well, but as I stood there preparing to pee, I became aware of a slight “wobble” to the world as if perspectives were constantly switching and swimming. The party, the noise coming through the door, people laughing and heckling the movie; it all felt like it was happening in side of me. Not inside of my head, but actually inside of me somehow. I was inside of me. Reality was too immediate, too ‘present’ for this to be a dream, but it had a distinct dreamlike quality to it. Anyway, it made me a little weary about using the restroom while I was inside my body, but I fired away, and nothing went wrong. I zipped up an congratulated myself in the mirror. After a moment I went back out and joined the party.

I felt that I was managing the situation pretty well, so after the movie ended, I made my way to the kitchen and mingled with some co-workers. A few executives from my work showed up somewhat unexpectedly, and I did my best to confine the strange, buzzing energy I was emitting to a level that I could control autonomously from the back of my mind. For the most part I think I was managing pretty well; but before too long I grew weary of wearing the sober mask. I excused myself from the conversation and joined another group in a quieter, more private room, where I could sit and observe the strange effects of the LSD.

This phase of the trip lasted for what seemed like a very long time. There is a chance I was experiencing time dilation, but it seemed like it plateaued at this stage for ~2 hours. Long enough that I began to expect that I had peaked. I started to slide into a state of wonder at how preposterous it was that these chemicals existed, and at the fortune of having found such amazing friends to share the experience with. Looking back on it, I think this might stand out as the most social I’d ever felt at a party to date. Despite the fact that I barely knew any of these people, something gave me the strongest desire to just chat with them, and to engage with them— and look them in the eye.

You have to understand, I’m terrible at small talk. Most people are afraid of public speaking—my fear is talking to strangers 1 on 1. Hell, even pretty good acquaintances give me social anxiety sometimes. It’s not a cold-sweat-provoking anxiety, it’s more of a ears-back, tail-between-the-legs, kind of anxiety. It’s a bit embarrassing, so I have a natural tendency to block it out. Usually my modus operandi at parties is to look busy or try to find a distraction that will give me a plausible excuse to have my attention diverted. Fiddling with the label of a beer bottle, or something like that.

But in this moment I was noticing a reaction from people that I’d never picked up on before— When I approached them, they lit up, they looked me in my eyes and they smiled. If felt really good. I felt welcome.

ººº

My trip officially started on the arm of that couch several hours after ingesting the tab. I sat there smiling, nursing a bottle of beer and smoking a joint when I began to survey the room. It seemed to me that there were people in this room that were “with me”. Sure I was aware that I was sitting on the arm of my friend’s couch, but I was also “somewhere else”. Somewhere much older—somewhere I had only just recently discovered. It felt so familiar that I began to feel uncomfortable. It was like a deja vu that didn’t seem to be going away. As I interacted with them, I began to get an eery feeling that they were ‘insiders’ of a strange and powerful world. A moment of frightening astonishment came over me as this phenomenon intensified. Every movement in the body language of those around me was in some strange way influenced by my thoughts—and not just the people I was engaging with either! Everyone the the whole room, every circle of conversation was a strange play being performed for me. I was not controlling them, it was more like they were attempting to wrangle or hypnotize me. If I moved to interact with one group of people, the conversations of the entire crowd seemed to shift and adjust.

At first the adjustments were so striking that I thought it must be some kind of practical joke; a game of “Let’s make Ben think he’s crazy”, but no matter how many times I tested the phenomenon, it didn’t go away. The fear that it was some practical joke was dwarfed by the fear that it was actually real— that I was in some sort of strange simulation world— A Truman-show-style drama designed to tempt me toward some unknown attractor. As I stopped engaging with the room, it would react by trying to grab my attention. People would get louder, a balloon in the next room popped. If I tried to tune it all out long enough, the tone of everyone’s conversation would turn impatient and scalding. I tried to guess what I was supposed to do, but the more I tried to reason it out, the more frustrated and annoyed the crowd seemed to become. Soon it didn’t even seem like they cared if I knew it was an act. The absurd play morphed into something that closer resembling a sophmorish meta-Kabuki, as each one of them overact the part of a frustrated extra at a party. If you’ve seen The Room, you may remember the scene at a birthday party, where all the party-extras all decide to go outside, or come back inside for no purpose at all, other than because the script requires that two characters be alone— That’s exactly what this felt like— bad acting and all!

I decided to go with it. Obviously whatever power was involved had intelligence far beyond anything I could understand. If it was leading me to some sort of hell, I clearly didn’t possess the power to stop it. I took a deep breath in and looked around the room, letting it be exactly what it was— letting my ears and eyes soak up as much of this insane world as I could. Suddenly things seemed to glow and resonate with an incredibly spiritual energy, and the strange feeling of being guided grew to an unbearable crescendo. I closed my eyes and the unmistakable feeling of falling rushed over me, as I feel deep within my self. I saw the dull read light that was leaking through my eyelids disappear in the distance as I fell farther and farther down. After a moment, I was somewhere far away from my body. I opened my eyes again, but the world was still buzzing intensely. These people, the ones who were “with me”— They all seemed to be working in perfect unison towards a common goal, which inexplicably revolved around my achieving some kind of hypnogogic breakthrough. The thought came to me, ºMaybe they are me!º— Only they seemed to be leading me toward something that I didn’t know about. But somehow that was it! ºThey need me to do something! But what?º

As if it were the set of an improvisational drama class, the people around me never broke character, despite being clearly aware of the act. And it didn’t seem like they cared one way or another if I knew they were acting. This fact in particular gave the whole experience an incredibly creepy vibe. A room full of memes and tropes— The same tropes that have repeated themselves over and over through time. But why? What are we supposed to see?

ºMaybe I need to let go of this bizarre projection-of-a-world around me and turn my attention inwardº, I though— clearly they were are all me trying to tell myself something, and I was ready to listen. If the answer was inside of all of them, then surely it was within me as well. I closed my eyes once more and took a deep breath in. Again I left my body. I heard the bottle I’d been holding fall to the ground. ºAn illusion programmed to contain youº, I thought. ºThe sound of the bottle crashing against the hardwood floor was just some pitiful attempt to snap me back into the mirror world.º I chuckled at how cliche an attempt it was. A huge smile spread across my face as I sank through a giant transcendental blob of flowing energy. I had laid on this blob before— during my 5MeO-DMT trip, the blob had been a boundary surrounding the “Temple”, or what I now call the Godhead. It had taken all of my courage to fall through the blob on my first encounter with it; this time, I just sailed right through. VIP style.

It’s the most peaceful thing I’ve ever experienced. Pure oneness. A union with the divine. Samadhi.

ºBut wait… what is that sound? Why is that sound here?… It’s a voice!º

“Ben”… “Ben can you open your eyes”?

The sound was a million years away, and so small. It didn’t belong to this world. Far above me, I sensed the body of a man laying alone in the darkness—ºMaybe I can use his eyesº, I though.

What I saw through the man’s eyes was extremely frightening. I saw a circle of concerned faces looking down upon a vanishing soul; and all of this happening at the end of a long dark tunnel. ºSomeone was dyingº, I realized. ºWas it me? Who was I?º A moment ago I’d thought that I was a guy at a party, but that reality had spun apart under the pressure of direct inspection. A peek behind the curtain had been enough to end the whole charade. ºBut how convincing a charade it had been!— and how elaborate!º. And now I was a soul departing its body; already forgetting it’s way back to the physical world. Maybe all those ghost tropes had been messages so that when I got to this place, I’d have to courage to move on. I accepted my fate and once more I let go completely. As I felt my energy approach the blob, I expected to pass through and emerge in some kind of afterlife—instead, I felt as if I was rapidly transposing and inverting through myself. Like a sock being turned inside out over and over. I couldn’t die. I couldn’t reach the Spiritual dimensions that I’d reached only moments before. I was stuck.

This was quite possibly the most frightening place I’d ever been. Surely this was the crossroads between life and death, but I was stuck floating in some sort of dark purgatory. It wasn’t dark exactly, it was—nothing. It was a darkness where not even thoughts of form could exist. An endless expanse which was paradoxically closing in around me; erasing the possibility of shape, or light.

Just then, the voices came back. I heard someone say, “do you want me to call an ambulance?”

ºMaybe I’d gotten the game all wrong… maybe the angels were encouraging me back to this strange body. Maybe it wasn’t my time to die after all!º

I rushed to peel the nothing back and re-enter the universe of forms. First I forced my mouth and lungs back through, but it was much harder to get the rest of my body through. ºThe blob!º, I thought. I was pushing myself back through the blob!

Next I thrust my arms back into existence, starting at the hands. I reached out and I felt fingers clasp around my arms. I didn’t know who’s hands they were, but the touch carried me the rest of the way through the membrane. I opened my eyes expecting to see the answer to this great mystery—but I was back in the bizarre-o-world of the party simulation. ºWhy hadn’t I arrived somewhere real. Who were these angels, and what were they trying to show me?º

I asked them “What’s going on?”, to which one of them responded “Come upstairs and lay down”. I followed unquestioning; somewhat excited to see where they were taking me, but It was just a bedroom—nothing special at all. ºPerhaps they led me here so that I could journey more comfortably through the blob.º I reasoned. As soon as I laid down on the bed, I began to sink away again.

“Here Ben, Drink this.” one of the angels said, handing me an enormous glass of water. I felt certain that if I attempted to drink the water, I would drown. ºMaybe that’s the key… maybe I’m drowning somewhere, and I need to drown here too so that my soul can move on. But I don’t want to drown!º

“Do I have to?” I asked, realizing I wasn’t sure.

“Yes, water is very good for you when you’ve done drugs.” responded the angel.

I knew I had done drugs, but that fact seemed wildly irrelevant in this context. I had just seen God; I had just died over and over and been repeatedly spit back into purgatory; I had just raised from the dead and was now apparently permanently trapped in a swimming nightmare world made all the more horrifying by the self-evident fact that it extended no further than my direct experience; And yet here was someone talking about drugs!

Water ran down my chin as I drank and drank and drank. ºI didn’t drown!º I though. The angel turned to leave, so I laid back down on the bed and prepared to disappear back into the spirit world.

“Ben!” the angel yelled.

“Yes?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I need to go back downstairs, but I’m afraid to leave you alone because you keep passing out.”

“I’m not passing out—I’m going back to the Godhead” I announced… ºWait…º It was at this moment that I realized that the bizarre-o-world must be real! The party illusion hadn’t been an illusion after all. I realized it was true, but I couldn’t understand it at all. ºHow were the angels able to go with me into the godhead if they weren’t angels after all?º

“But… you were ‘with me’.” I said.

“With you where?”

“In the Godhead.” I said, expecting that it should have been self-evident to her.

“No, I wasn’t. I’ve been at a party this whole time.” She said with a kind smile on her face.

“Will you try to come with me?” I asked.

“Of course— how do I get there?” she asked. I think at this point she was feeling incredibly relieved to know that I had control over my vanishing acts, and that I wasn’t passing out uncontrollably. I had already told her all about my 5MeO-DMT trip, and she’d seemed very interested in what I was calling the Godhead. She probably didn’t expect anything to happen, but partially to humor me, and partially out of a genuine curiosity she laid down next to me and listened.

“Breathe like I breathe” I said, “And, just let go—just follow me.”

We laid together for a few moments as I journeyed through the spirit world in search of the blob—the parameter of the Godhead. I couldn’t quite find it, despite being thoroughly out-of-body and totally immersed in some kind of multi-verse. I felt a presence, so I asked out loud “Are you here?”

The response was only a loving laugh. It wasn’t my friend’s laugh— not the friend laying next to me. It was a laugh I knew quite well; the laugh belonged to a wonderful woman who was not at the party. A woman I was beginning to like quite well.

Before too long I was sucked back out of the spirit world, and back into reality. My friend was there next to me. She seemed genuinely disappointed to report that she hadn’t made it.

For some time we laid and talked. We had one of the most intimate and natural conversations I’ve ever had with anyone. A truly strange and wonderful connection; but one we would eventually find just didn’t survive between us in our sober minds.

After some time, we rejoined the party. The rest of the night played out like a movie. I felt absolutely incredible. Normally I’m haunted by social anxiety, but for the remainder of that night (which lived on well past sunrise), I felt absolutely free—and I mean *absolutely* free. There wasn’t a shadow of self-doubt in my mind. I haven’t felt that comfortable about being myself around anyone— ever. Not with my mom and dad when I was a child, not with my family, not with my oldest friends or any of my previous girlfriends. It wasn’t a drunken kind of freedom either, I was totally aware of an inner transformation. Some things will only last as long as you don’t acknowledge them too overtly, but this I could, and did, observe directly— that I just felt… comfortable.

Exp Year: 2015	ExpID: 108127
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 33
Published: Sep 26, 2019	Views: 9,506
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LSD (2) : Large Group (10+) (19), General (1)